HeadLever:Elmo Jones: When your descendants have been enslaved, brutalized, and have lost their names, for 300 years. Until then, STFU.

So, pretty much everyone then, right?

No, no. You don't understand. All the other periods of enslavement, brutalization, and dehumanization that happened to Europeans don't count. Oh, and those pesky Native Americans need to stop biatching about genocide. biatches.

untaken_name:Elmo Jones: amquelbettamin: Can I play the white male race card yet?

When your descendants have been enslaved, brutalized, and have lost their names, for 300 years. Until then, STFU.

How far back do we get to go? I was never a slave nor a slaveowner, but my ancestors have been both. What's the statute of limitations for playing the victim card for people who died generations before you were born?

That's a good question. How about great grandma? I'm feeling pretty entitled and emotionally damaged right now.

Ishkur:Yes, but the reasons are idiotic: They're not moral, or ethical, or survival, or even rational.

They're economic.

And the only reason why they're economic is because Capitalism only works under a policy of constant growth which simply is not possible in a finite system.

The solution, then, is not the keep increasing the population for economic prosperity's sake, but to throw away Capitalism entirely and adopt a new economic metric that doesn't rely on growth and profit as the be-all and end-all of human endeavor.

We have to change our priorities here.

Came here to say this. This isn't for the taxes it's for the credit cards.

Happy Hours:Dumski: From the Wikipedia article on ZPG (Zero Population Growth)

In the late 1960s ZPG became a big political movement in the U.S. and parts of Europe, with strong links to environmentalism and feminism. Yale University was a stronghold of the ZPG activists who believed "that a constantly increasing population is responsible for many of our problems: pollution, violence, loss of values and of individual privacy."[8] Founding fathers of the movement were Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, and Thomas Eisner. Ehrlich stated: "The mother of the year should be a sterlized woman with two adopted children."

My father was an OB/GYN in the '60s and 70's. I remember him wearing a ZPG button on his lab coat.That was the thinking post baby boom, and he was a supporter of that cause. Geez Dad, what a waste of time.

Well, when you base retirement plans on Ponzi schemes you need more growth.

I'm not saying there's not room for more growth, but have you seen a graph of human population growth?

[www.endangeredspecieshandbook.org image 394x263]

Population is a huge concern whether it's not having enough workers to support the old folks or so many people that resources like food, water and energy because a problem not to mention environmental concerns.

I'm sure we as a species will survive but we're going to have issues with population.

I believe the world population is set to peak in 2050 or so. What's remarkable is just how quickly certain countries have seen their fertility rate plunge. Ones you wouldn't suspect. For instance Iran and Brazil.

Ishkur:Yes, but the reasons are idiotic: They're not moral, or ethical, or survival, or even rational.

They're economic.

And the only reason why they're economic is because Capitalism only works under a policy of constant growth which simply is not possible in a finite system.

The solution, then, is not the keep increasing the population for economic prosperity's sake, but to throw away Capitalism entirely and adopt a new economic metric that doesn't rely on growth and profit as the be-all and end-all of human endeavor.

We have to change our priorities here.

The way we practice capitalism, yes. Capitalism in and of itself is not the problem. It may not be the best way of dealing with economics (far too open to corruption and depletion of resources to name just two flaws with Capitalism), but it's certainly the best we have right now. Until we have a new economic model, we can't throw out the current one.

WTFdoesitmatter:Elmo Jones: amquelbettamin: Can I play the white male race card yet?

When your descendants have been enslaved, brutalized, and have lost their names, for 300 years. Until then, STFU.

And that's the attitude that stops race relations in this country from getting anywhere. Maybe if everyone can just get over historical wrongs they weren't alive for, progress could be made.

They'd rather have someone or something else to blame for where they are in life. Just like every single other person on the planet. Racism is still alive and well, so they have a point, but I feel like the wrong angles end up getting attacked. The cure for racism is positive exposure.

Maximer:untaken_name: Elmo Jones: amquelbettamin: Can I play the white male race card yet?

When your descendants have been enslaved, brutalized, and have lost their names, for 300 years. Until then, STFU.

How far back do we get to go? I was never a slave nor a slaveowner, but my ancestors have been both. What's the statute of limitations for playing the victim card for people who died generations before you were born?

That's a good question. How about great grandma? I'm feeling pretty entitled and emotionally damaged right now.

My great grandma got smallpox from the white man's blankets. Ok, that might have been great great grandma, my people's oral history tradition ain't so clear. What do I win?

Fubini:Fertility panic isn't so much related to overpopulation as it is to funding the old people's pensions. If we don't have enough young people we're going to have to go all soylent green on the old folks homes.

I hate to admit it, but THIS.

You know, my grandparents as well as the other Junkee's grandparents are managing to their live old-aged lives better than any of their grandchildren are living our young lives. They all have pensions, Social Security, savings, homes paid for, etc. Not a single one of them had student loan debt or struggled to pay for childcare ($1,325/month here in Los Angeles). They were able to buy decent homes on a single income rather than struggle to afford a mortgage on two incomes.

WTFdoesitmatter:Elmo Jones: amquelbettamin: Can I play the white male race card yet?

When your descendants have been enslaved, brutalized, and have lost their names, for 300 years. Until then, STFU.

And that's the attitude that stops race relations in this country from getting anywhere. Maybe if everyone can just get over historical wrongs they weren't alive for, progress could be made.

Well, I'm about as white as you can get.

My ancestors include Irish who were brought to North America against their will, and my great-grandparents escaped from the Ukraine during the 1917 revolution, changed their names, and refused to talk about the old country, because of how terrible it was for them.

It's interesting, but because it happened long before I was born, has next to no influence on how I live my life.

And how can anyone know what will happen to their descendants 300 years from now?

FizixJunkee:Fubini: Fertility panic isn't so much related to overpopulation as it is to funding the old people's pensions. If we don't have enough young people we're going to have to go all soylent green on the old folks homes.

I hate to admit it, but THIS.

You know, my grandparents as well as the other Junkee's grandparents are managing to their live old-aged lives better than any of their grandchildren are living our young lives. They all have pensions, Social Security, savings, homes paid for, etc. Not a single one of them had student loan debt or struggled to pay for childcare ($1,325/month here in Los Angeles). They were able to buy decent homes on a single income rather than struggle to afford a mortgage on two incomes.

rustypouch:WTFdoesitmatter: Elmo Jones: amquelbettamin: Can I play the white male race card yet?

When your descendants have been enslaved, brutalized, and have lost their names, for 300 years. Until then, STFU.

And that's the attitude that stops race relations in this country from getting anywhere. Maybe if everyone can just get over historical wrongs they weren't alive for, progress could be made.

Well, I'm about as white as you can get.

My ancestors include Irish who were brought to North America against their will, and my great-grandparents escaped from the Ukraine during the 1917 revolution, changed their names, and refused to talk about the old country, because of how terrible it was for them.

It's interesting, but because it happened long before I was born, has next to no influence on how I live my life.

And how can anyone know what will happen to their descendants 300 years from now?

mr lawson:Ishkur: MugzyBrown: Actually the structure of the faulty economics (not capitalism) put in place by most western gov'ts is what needs constant growth. Capitalism does not.

Explain.

(keep in mind that Capitalism relies on scarcity to operate and will be naturally cast aside in the distant future anyway as we approach post-scarcity civilization)

I applaud you for always trying to explain economics to most of these people. You have a lot more patience than i. They took maybe one macro course and then parrot the economic talking point (classical vs Keynesian) of whichever side of the political spectrum they fall on. I gave up a long time ago.

Well, the Age of Post-Scarcity is coming, and it will be a slow burn over a couple hundred years rather than a complete overhaul within a single generation, which is how all economic systems transform into new ones (ie: Manorialism--->Mercantilism--->Capitalism). And it's going to start with the biggest issue of the 21st century (besides overpopulation, global warming, and dwindling resources): Employment.

As automation replaces the jobs that humans used to do, we're going to see an increasing amount of society capable of running itself. And when it gets to a point where only a fraction of full-time jobs exist and the system is capable of supporting up to 80% unemployment without totally collapsing1.

Why do we work? To make money, obviously. Why do we want to make money? So we can buy stuff that makes our lives more comfortable. Why does this stuff cost money? Because there is only so much of it about. If there's not enough of something, it has value. It's worth something. Rarity is expensive. Everything abundant is worthless. It is free. I'll come back to this point later.

10,000 years ago, 100% of the population worked on providing enough food to sustain everyone in the tribe.5,000 years ago, 80% of the population worked on providing enough food to sustain everyone in the city-state.1,000 years ago, 60% of the population worked on providing enough food to sustain everyone in the kingdom.200 years ago, 40% of the population worked on providing enough food to sustain everyone in the country.Today, less than 10% of our population actively work on providing enough food for the rest of us.

This level of efficiency will soon spread to all industries. Automation, industrial processes, manufacturing and mass production will provide for all, with very little human labor required. Some companies are already so streamlined and efficient that they can execute business operations and move product with a skeleton force that keeps shrinking. Additionally, with service-oriented architecture, one man can run a complete business all by himself without the need for employees. His business operations are modular -- he hires labor when needed....part-time, temporary, contract work.

So what then? What happens when a businesses can be run perfectly fine without employees? Without payroll? Without you? What happens when one man can do the job of one million (like farmers do now)?

We are rapidly approaching that age. The age of post-scarcity and post-capitalism.

We've seen what happens to media (cf. internet) when it reaches a state of absolute abundance -- it becomes worthless. It becomes free. It becomes accessible to everyone everywhere, equally, all the time. Now stretch this same paradigm across all sectors, all industries, all segments of human consumption. What happens?

Maintenance and upkeep of our system is being handled by fewer and fewer personnel. Automation makes things cheaper, more efficient, more abundant. Without scarcity, there is no value. No value, no cost. No cost, no need to pay for it. And if you don't need to pay for anything, then why need money? And if you don't need money, then why work?

Since Capitalism is a resource-based system that requires scarcity to operate, it will ultimately be discarded -- abundance makes it meaningless. What will people live/work for then? Since everything is taken care of, social acceptance within a peer group and self-actualization become prime goals (youtube is a perfect example of this: When people can't find work, they invent their own things to do...even if its just dumb Gangnam Style and Harlem Shake parodies).

I like to envision a Star Trekian future where the essential work (the 2%ers) is handled by different segments of the population during different stages of their lives, like shifts. It would be a mandatory service thing (ie: every 10 years, you must put in six months of labor) that rotates through the populace. So in an average life, most people would only work about 6000 hours. The rest of their lives they do whatever they like.

But I can't see any of this being a feasible reality for another century or so, when technology/AI improves and money becomes even more of an abstraction than it is now. But the key economic indicator is scarcity: Things have value because they are rare. We obtain them by exchanging them with other rare/finite things, namely currency. Once we get over this notion and officially annihilate scarcity (and the need to work for it), then Capitalism will be truly dead and done away with.

But it will come naturally, through social and technological progress, not through revolution. And it will come gradually, over the course of several generations. Not all at once, and certainly not within our lifetimes.

But before all that, we have to evaluate what we live and work for, and why. And we must come to accept the notion that a life of work isn't our destiny (even if we want it). We must evolve beyond the the idea that our lives are governed by the salary and the paycheck.

That might be a difficult thing to do.

/1 You might think this will never be possible, but we're already almost there. Society is humming along now taking care of a great number of people who don't contribute any value to the system: The very poor, the very rich, the handicapped, the disabled, the sick, the elderly, children, students, and the unemployed, underemployed and unemployable are all being supported quite comfortably by the people who are..... and somehow this is not a net negative on society.

Google up "The Pivot of Civilization" by Margaret Sanger. You'll get an interesting backstory about the theory of overpopulation, eugenics, abortion and birth control, Planned Parenthood, and -- believe it or not -- the New World Order. The gist of the argument is that birth rates are too high among the wrong sorts of people, and too low among the better classes. But don't take my word for it. Google.

And as a progressive humanist, all I can say is: good. White people are oppressors, and they should have a taste of their own medicine at the hands of their victims. I can't wait to see the day when Europe and America is majority nonwhite and their wealth and power stripped away. Only by then could the world be a peaceful and diverse society free of hate.

Mentat:The biggest side effect of the population leveling off is that once the baby boomers die off, there will be a massive world-wide worker shortage. Countries will be fighting to let immigrants in. It will be the greatest boon to the Middle Class since the Black Death.

Techhell:Capitalism in and of itself is not the problem. It may not be the best way of dealing with economics (far too open to corruption and depletion of resources to name just two flaws with Capitalism), but it's certainly the best we have right now.

Capitalism is a tool, like a hammer, and like any hammer you can use it to build a house or bash someone's skull in. Whichever way depends on the government system it's under. Capitalism's goal is to amass capital (ie: the means of production), and it considers all things expendable -- including human life -- in pursuit of this aim. That makes it utterly and inhumanly amoral.

People seem to always forget this: Capitalism has absolutely no ethical value whatsoever. It will push its own mother into the street to pick up a nickel, but it will also feed the poor for a tax writeoff.

Happy Hours:I'm not saying there's not room for more growth, but have you seen a graph of human population growth?

Population is a huge concern whether it's not having enough workers to support the old folks or so many people that resources like food, water and energy because a problem not to mention environmental concerns

Why are we still using systems (political, economic, social) designed when there were only a billion people worldwide?

Techhell:The way we practice capitalism, yes. Capitalism in and of itself is not the problem.

No, really, it doesn't work without growth. The general expectation that investing existing capital in something, along with labor/energy/other inputs, will produce more than the invested capital (i.e., produce a return, if not a guarantee, statistically more often than not) works in a growth environment. You're just debating who gets what split of the spoils. In a steady-state or shrinking environment, any return on capital squeezes out labor entirely (since there isn't any general growth we're splitting, if the capital expects some growth on investment it has to come from labor or the environment).

Now there's the question of how far into fictional/notional growth we can go, call it growth, and keep the game going. Japan is trying that one right now (devaluing currency). That's ended up badly before (hyperinflation episodes), but we'll see how the post-growth-era Japanese do with it.

HeadLever:Zombie Butler: Came here to say this. This isn't for the taxes it's for the credit cards.

Problem is, what do you replace it with? All economic models have their own sets of pitfalls.

Gah, just one more article before I do all the little bits you have to do before the work week begins I said. Just a quick comment I said (smacks forehead).

Tough one, really, and not something I've fully tackled in my own philosophy. I've read a lot on the topic and I still haven't come to a conclusion.A resource-based economy might be the way to go but just like the old communist system, if abundance isn't available, the quartermaster will have all of the power. Not the most ideal situation. Also, someone somewhere will decide what gets made, who decides this? Is it democratic? Can it be subverted?

Capitalism it's self has some egalitarian features.but tends towards monopolies that have no investment in the well-being of human beings or our finite earth.

Socialism with free-market features might be a good stepping stone. Protection for the earth and people with free market able to function. However, the two systems are disparate in their very nature, so eventually one would subvert the other (honestly this is why I see civil war in China eventually).

Communism, unless it has a strong manufacturing base, and a strong democratic tradition, is doomed because of the quartermaster. Although it seems to work very well for small communities (see Kibbutz).

Any form of government which is set up to keep the elite in power is right out. Sorry, they all tend to forget they put on their pants one leg at a time like the rest of us. Kingdoms, oligarchies, Corporatism.

You're right, they all have their pitfalls. As I said, I haven't settled on one and considering my current thoughts I might never settle on one. It's just that I see us (humans) running toward this terrible cliff and it's the system we live in that's the main horse on the carriage. Sorry, I can't give you a more definitive answer.

Acravius:If we reformatted our cities to be vertical, NYC would only need to cover 1 square mile providing 5000 square ft of apartment space per family of 4 in 20,000 58 story buildings (allowing for 5600 58 story buildings for commercial/industrial and food production/distribution, hospitals, emergency services etc). If we were to take this compact approach, we could reduce the needed infrastructure of the city by nearly 10,000 combined miles of roads, subways, bus lines not to mention all of the other government investments like school properties, police, fire and emergency service vehicles, etc. Literally we could do away with supporting 90% of our current expenditure of time and money, by making our cities vertical instead of sprawling wastelands.

Happy Hours:super_grass: Translation: white people are being bred out.

And as a progressive humanist, all I can say is: good. White people are oppressors, and they should have a taste of their own medicine at the hands of their victims. I can't wait to see the day when Europe and America is majority nonwhite and their wealth and power stripped away. Only by then could the world be a peaceful and diverse society free of hate.

The other part of the falling fertility rate is that it might, very soon, be balanced out by medical technology allowing people to live to 200 years old, or some ridiculous number. It sounds like science fiction, but genetics researchers have already doubled the lifespan of creatures from flatworms to rats. I'm betting they'll get to humans before long.

Fewer people, but we all get to live biblical lifespans? I'm cool with that.